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Sleeping in the School, Again!

Down down down the mountain, my friends riding on top of the bus with our bikes, me safely bouncing around inside with our bags.

Songs: Orgasm by L7, Monster Hospital by Metric

I’ll make this a quickie entry. I just powered-up to charge my dangerously low-batt iPod to, but since we’re sleeping in a school again (without much privacy) I best make haste before they notice my pretty shiny Apples.

(Geek: Did you know that you can charge your iPod from your notebook running on battery power? Me neither, till recently. It actually sort of sucks if you’re just trying to play movies from your iPod on the big screen, as it automatically charges your iPod/and subsequently discharges your computer. No options for this, Apple?)

We’ve been in bed for 2 hours and groups of people coming home peer in the window and say hello (some singing, some drunk, all laughing). So we’re back in the school house from 2 weeks ago, and boy that seems like ages ago! Back then, I though sleeping in a simple room with rock walls, tin roof, and dirt floor was roughing it. Now we’re seasoned pros, and this is great, and free! Yeah, the rooms for 150 rupees ($2) we can do without! It was funny to have the school room as our destination today, and only moments after we arrived the kids came down off the mountain running and kept us company until sunset. This time I didn’t feel as objectified, (like when we we re setting-up and dozens of them were watching from all angles through the windows.) This time, set-up was lickety-split, they know us now (from last time), and we spent most of the next 2 hours playing in the school yard.

We slept in these kids’ classroom.

We’ve doubled-back in the direction we came from (82km so far from the farm in Begnas Tal), two days of pedaling behind us and in another day we’ll be at the next farm in Royal Chitwan National Park. Biking has been great. I’m stronger, riding back over familiar terrain has been a pleasure — usually I’m bored going back the same way, like when hiking — and I re-arranged my bags by taking my bedding out of the big panniers to make more room and strapping them on to the top (in Bob’s awesome waterproof bag, big wink!), moving heavy stuff out from the front bags for way better handling. The ride in this direction has also been much easier, with lots more downhill riding. One hill I was dreading was about 10km up, and whenever I felt weak I’d ponder this deep thought: “Would I rather be working in Midtown, or be climbing this mountain in Nepal?” I don’t think I even enjoyed the downhills we had on the first trip, as I knew they meant long climbs today. But I’ve been tackling these hills like a beast and singing all the way down, as they’re behind me now! Today I topped 50km/hr downhill four times! We also stopped off at familiar places where we had great meals, got some killer groceries for fresh fruit and vegetable salad for breakfast. In short, we’ve got this down!

Ferocious kitten

Today I saw some monkeys doing it. They were big baboon-types. I haven’t seen any monkeys since Kathmandu, so that was a treat. We also saw some dogs doing it earlier. Now we’re heading to Chitwan to see the tigers do it. My sex life is strictly vicarious — so how’s the action back home? One more animal anecdote: Shortly after we got in our sleeping bags and started reading we hear this loud, incessant meowing. Either it was kids (not a long-shot) or a rare Nepali kitten! (There are so few cats here, I can count all I’ve seen on one hand.) So the little cat jumps in the window and she’s like a constant meow-machine! She snooped all around us, smelled our bags, then jumped up into the rafters and climbed all around the top of the classroom until she really started crying and we tried to rescue her. Eventually she did some cat aerial acrobatics and got down, and hung out with us until just a little while ago. I started to miss Ezmy, Amy’s cat, and looked at going away pictures on my iPod for a while. Sniffle. I miss you guys!!!

I may sound like Ironman when it comes to biking but I’m freaking tired! I was ready for bed at 6:30 when we got here. You wouldn’t believe it but I’ve been up by 7am most days, which still adds up to more sleep than I’ve ever gotten in my life! Tonight Jamey reported that his love handles are officially shrinking, and Bonnie’s declared her butt is, too. I wonder what’s happening to me! I haven’t looked in a mirror in weeks. Oh dang, I’m the last one awake! I better catch some zzZZz before class is in session. I loved reading some positive feedback emails last night. I’ll keep posting if you keep writing! (Ahem, ahem! Sorry, must be some phlem from the burning trash.) So much for a short entry! Goodnight, lovelies!